ANALYSIS

Obama's speech did not quite promise a new Marshall Plan.(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

President Obama's Middle East Speech 5/20/11

Perhaps it was inevitable that the “fall of the Berlin Wall” moment for the messy Middle East has created so many agonizing choices for America. Certainly in trying to get on the right side of the historic change sweeping through the region, President Obama in his speech on Thursday spoke uncomfortable truths to multiple audiences.

To nascent democracies in Tunisia and Egypt, Obama reached out the hand of economic aid, but in these tight-fisted times it held much less than the Middle East “Marshall Plan” those countries had hoped for. Bloody-handed autocrats in Libya, Yemen, and Syria were essentially told that the days of their rule are numbered, even as battered protesters in those countries were left to wonder what the United States might do to hasten the end of their suffering. Friends were treated to criticism in the case of Bahrain and damning silence in the case of Saudi Arabia. Closer to home, war- and recession-weary Americans were told of a new $2 billion jobs and economic development program – for the Middle East.

The most inconvenient truth of all, however, was reserved for the U.S.'s closest ally in the region. For the first time, Israel heard from an American president that its decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory has become unsustainable, and that Washington’s vision of a two-state solution is based generally on 1967 borders, with a full withdrawal of Israeli military forces from a sovereign, demilitarized Palestine.

Though it contained difficult medicine, President Obama’s speech on the Middle East sought to fundamentally reorient U.S. foreign policy in the region in a more hopeful direction: the death of Osama bin Laden and discrediting of al-Qaida’s vision of a fundamentalist Islamist caliphate; the nearly complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from a fledgling democratic Iraq; and especially the pro-democratic uprisings of the “Arab Spring,” which have created an opportunity, he said, to align U.S. ideals and core interests.

“So we face a historic opportunity,” said Obama, speaking from the State Department. “There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity. Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.”

The elevation of democratic reforms and transitions to the “top priority” of U.S. foreign policy in the region carries significant costs and risks. The $2 billion in debt relief and loan guarantees Obama offered to Egypt, for instance, is likely to prove only a down payment on the total aid and support required to help the largest Arab country and Mideast bellwether in its difficult transition to democracy.

“The Egyptian officials I talk to say the scale of the assistance needed just to see them through next summer is roughly $12 billion, so they worry that the Obama aid package is both too small and too focused on longer-term projects to address their immediate problems,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.